Wednesday, 3 December 2014

4 December 2014

The relationship
between politicians and the media has been the subject of a lot of recent
speculation. Often symbiotic, occasionally incestuous, it is always a good topic
for rumour and gossip. Perhaps the real extent to which politicians are in the
media thrall will be shown next week when Parliament wraps up its business for
the year, conveniently just in time to enable politicians to attend the annual
Press Gallery Christmas Party. (Has Whaleoil been invited?)

For the first
time in many years I will not be there. Instead, I will be at an
information-sharing exercise of another hue – the first meeting of the D5 in
London. Now, while most will know about the G20 and will have followed its
recent meeting in Brisbane, probably few (if any) will have heard of the D5.

The D5 is a
grouping of five nations (no, not Five Eyes!) – Britain, New Zealand, Korea,
Estonia and Israel – considered amongst the most advanced in the provision of
on-line government services. Its establishment is a British Government initiative,
and next week will be the first time the five nations have met together. New
Zealand is well placed to play its part in this grouping – it is already
government policy here to be achieving 70% of New Zealanders’ most common
interactions with government on-line by 2017, and we are keen to both share our
experiences and learn from others.

According to the
United Nations E-Government Survey released in July 2014, New Zealand already
shows “an exemplary commitment to the provision of transactional services” and
is ranked 9th in the world, up significantly from just a couple of
years ago. We are especially well regarded for the work we have done on cloud
computing and the use of the creative commons licence for open data.

All of this, of
course, will excite the geeks – who know what it means – but it has little
immediate resonance with the average citizen. And that is the challenge of
digital transformation. It cannot just be about system upgrades, but it has to
demonstrate a positive, specific and noticeable benefit to the individual to be
sustainable. One such demonstration in the New Zealand context is that we have
just renewed the 300,000th passport on-line. That percentage of
on-line renewals is rising steadily, with the time involved dropping
dramatically to just 2-3 days.

The government’s Better
Public Services strategy is about achieving similar types of results across the
board. The establishment of the D5 provides an opportunity for countries of
like mind to share experiences and learn from each other. It promises to become
an extremely valuable forum.

Information
sharing of a different type is the stock-in trade of the Press Gallery
Christmas Party, which is why I regret not being there to hear all the latest
passing gossip. But the work of the D5 is likely to be more enduring, lasting
well beyond the next newspaper headline, or television news bulletin, and
therefore of far more benefit to our citizens.